Making use of the Calendar

1.5 systems feature a Calendar, which can be used to control call flow. Multiple calendars can be created on, or linked to the device, allowing the potential for each user's presence/follow to be controlled by their calendar.

Further, calendars could be used to control inbound routes on primary DIDs , taking into account public holiday's, business holidays and other scheduled events and directing calls accordingly

Multiple calendars can be configured on the same unit, and the device can also be configured to to synchronise with a remote calendar, allowing for external control of the calendar

Let's have a look at the types of calendar available:

Local Calendar:

A local calendar can be created on the device. Admin access is required to create, edit and delete events on a local calendar. For this reason, a local calendar is typically used to schedule events that are unlikely to change, and in which new entries will not be required. An example of this would be to store all public holidays. It is possible to configure more than one local calendar on a system

Remote Calendar:

Remote calendars are hosted on another system, with only a reference to the calendar configured on the PBX. This facilitates integration to users' personal calendars, be it a Google Calendar, an Apple Calendar or an Outlook calendar.

Remote calendars are particularly useful when tied to user's presence or Follow-me facilities, as they synchronise with the remote calendar after a configurable time interval. This would allow a user to add events to their calendars, and have their telephone behaviour adapt to their schedules, without requiring access to the PBX. Simply modify the calendar, and the PBX will pull any modifications from the calendar on the given schedule.

When configuring a remote calendar, a synchronisation frequency can be set. This determines how frequently the PBX will synchronise with the remote calendar and pull new events.

It is possible to have a calendar synchronise with the remote calendar as frequently as once per minute, or as seldom as once per week.